Lansdowne construction shakes some Glebe residents

The earth is shaking for some Holmwood Avenue residents of the Glebe as construction crews operate a large compressor on site at the $200 million Lansdowne Park redevelopment.

The giant machine is compacting soil to ensure stability for foundations of future buildings on site. According to those across the street on Holmwood, this particular work has been going on since November, for 11 hours each day.

"It's a huge compaction machine that's dropping a giant weight on the ground. Sort of about every five seconds, like pound, pound, pound," said Holmwood Avenue resident Dennis Brock.

"If you stand on the street you can't feel it too much but if you go up on the third floor you can really feel it, like your whole house is shaking," Brock added.

Joe Forsythe of Patterson Construction says he's using special equipment to monitor the vibration levels, ensuring the operators stay within legal levels and noted that the vibrations shouldn't cause any structural damage to surrounding buildings.

"If they were above, we'd have to stop and come up with a different strategy," he said.

Larry Gauthier has lived on Holmwood for three years and the machine is currently just five metres from his front door.

"You literally feel like you're in an earthquake zone," said Gauthier. "They hide behind, 'it's legal'. Yeah, it's legal but it's not acceptable ... we live this everyday."

While neighbourhood homes were inspected before the work commenced, Gauthier is concerned the shaking has increased the size of existing cracks in the walls of his home.

Gauthier, who has voiced criticism about the development in the past — particularly the storage of contaminated soil on the site — said the city told him that the compacting will go on for another three weeks.

In the meantime, he says residents are documenting damage to their homes - in case they need to seek compensation later.